ride with bob

No, not that "Ride with Bob."

Some of The Usual Suspects were in contact for a ride for yesterday, but I didn't go. I had a fever early in the morning of the previous day. The fever had passed, but I still had a headache at the time the arrangements were being made.

The next day I got up with no fever or headache and feeling great... but in these days, I decided to go for a COVID-19 test at a local doc-in-the-box. I didn't have to leave the car; the doctor took an exceptionally long probe, and inserted it an exceptionally long way up my nose... it was not the worst pain I've ever had, but I will be grateful for an excuse not to repeat the experience. I'll know in four or five days what the outcome was. (In view of the fact that I did almost 40 miles with 1600' of climb that day, and a longer and hillier one today, I suspect the result will be negative. Does that mean I'll need to have those nasal probes done again?)

Bob N couldn't do the Saturday ride either, so he asked if anybody was going out today. I was the only taker. We agreed to meet at the Six Mile/Blackwells Mills lot. When I got there, the lot entrance looked like this:

I guess they're serious about not wantin' people to park there.

Bob had a route of about 40 miles that had a bit more climb in it than I'd done the previous day. He's been along on a number of my rides, and lives in the area my rides go, and wanted to show me a few things, like where a road is due to go in that will make it easier to get to that Thomas Sweet I like to stop at. We cut across the lawn of the Montgomery Lower Middle School:

(Bob said it was about twenty yards; I think it was longer), where we found another of those town paths.

This one has one of those relative-distances-of-the-planets setups (not the relative sizes, though, as far as I could see; I suspect they'd be too small at this scale).

EVERYBODY was out today. We stopped in front of the closed Sourlands Cycles store for a quick snack, and waved to a number of riders who passed; we went up Greenwood to Rileyville Road, pulled off to find a quiet place to relieve ourselves, and were surprised to see a convention of visitors parked there; we rode for miles on Wertsville Road waving to everyone else riding for miles on Wertsville Road.

In 2015, I had a bad crash on Amwell Road (also see this, and this). I've avoided riding on Amwell since then (I don't even drive on it much). But Bob just led away onto Amwell Road... and I did fine. I owe him for a desensitization session.

From Amwell, we turned onto a cutoff that was never completed. It's a shame it doesn't go anywhere I want to go, because it looks like this:

... and Bob tells me there's rarely traffic on it. But it did get us much of the way back to Six Mile Run.

Once there, Bob was going to make it an 80-mile day, but with yesterday's ride (and climb) and this one, I decided I'd had enough, and went home to finish the chores and continue to practice for retirement. I hope to get good at it.